Machakos High Court has granted an application by the State to reopen the hearing of a case in which a former insurance official is accused of murdering his nephew with the intent of claiming a hefty insurance compensation.
The accused, Evans Masaku Kasyoki was in 2014 charged with the murder of his nephew, Eric Makau, then 27 years old after allegedly forging documents and enrolling the deceased to a life insurance policy.
The deceased was found murdered in a thicket a few meters from his parent’s home in Mbilini village in Kangundo in March 2014.
A postmortem on the deceased’s body revealed Makau suffered a severe head injury inflicted by a blunt object.
Call data indicated that the accused and the deceased were at the same location on the night the deceased was murdered.
The case, which has dragged on in court for a decade now had been closed only for the prosecution to move a notice of Motion in February this year, seeking to reopen the case.
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And on Wednesday, Justice Francis Olel, sitting in Machakos, allowed the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to call two senior bank employees, which the prosecution believes will shed light in delivering a fair justice in the 10-year old case.
The prosecution had told the court that the application was informed by the fact that the case had been handled by nine different state counsels with at least seven of them proceeding on transfer in the course of trial.
“This had led to unintended misstatement by different state counsels attending to the matter as to the number of the remaining witnesses, which the prosecution intended to call and it culminated in the prosecution case being closed prematurely without two important prosecution witnesses being called to testify,” said the DPP in court papers seen by The Standard.
On the other hand, the accused, Evans Masaku had opposed the application claiming that it was a ploy by the prosecution to delay the judgment.
However, invoking Section 150 of the criminal procedure code, Justice Olel declared the court had powers to summon a witness at any stage of trial provided the rights of the accused were not violated.
“I do find that the prosecution’s application dated February 14th 2024 is merited and is allowed. The prosecution case is hereby reopened and are directed to extract summon and serve the said witnesses who will be heard on priority basis,” the judge said.
Justice Olel also directed the prosecution to serve the accused person with witness statements and copy of exhibits and their list of documents in good time before the said witnesses testify.